(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a utilization-time changing support device that supports change in a utilization time of a household electrical appliance based on measured power consumption of the appliance, and a method of supporting change in the utilization time of the household electrical appliance.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when electric power is measured in each of households and factories and the measured electric power is likely to exceed a predetermined upper limit, a technique of interrupting the flow of electricity by a circuit breaker is known (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-319572 hereinafter referred to as Patent Reference 1). In Patent Reference 1, before the circuit breaker trips, power supply to a household electrical appliance is stopped, based on power consumption of the appliance and electric power data in a power distribution board. Thus, the peak power consumption can be reduced in advance. In particular, when total power consumption of household electrical appliances in a household is larger than a predetermined rate of the available total electric power, the power in the household is automatically turned off. Furthermore, a system that advises a utilization period of a household electrical appliance to save the electricity expense is proposed (for example, see “Development of electric usage supporting system for domestic customer. Development of the functions for electric usage support and evaluation of this function”, Tsukasa Yoshimitsu and et al., Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) Report, CRIEPI R99011, May 2000 hereinafter referred to as Non-Patent Reference 1). This system predicts an operation schedule for each household electrical appliance based on the past utilization record. Furthermore, the system determines whether or not the utilization of household electrical appliances with large power consumption is predicted during a period when the electric rate is high, based on the electric rate information by season and time-of-day rate system. When the utilization of household electrical appliances with large power consumption is predicted during a period when the electric rate is high, the system advises changing the utilization period to a period when the electric rate is low.
However, Patent Reference 1 discloses a case where although the peak power consumption can be reduced in advance, the operation that has been already started is suspended because the user is notified that the amount of power consumption is large after starting using the household electrical appliance. Furthermore, Non-Patent Reference 1 proposes changing the utilization period of a household electrical appliance that has been used in the past during the period when the electric rate is high. However, depending on each household, household electrical appliances are categorized into the appliances in which the utilization periods can be easily changed and the appliances having difficulties in changing the utilization periods. Thus, even when the system advises changing utilization periods of all household electrical appliances that have been used in the past, the household electrical appliances may include household electrical appliances having difficulties in changing the utilization periods. Thus, there is a problem that the utilization periods of the household electrical appliances cannot be appropriately changed. In particular, there is a problem that the peak power consumption cannot be appropriately reduced.
The present invention has been conceived in view of the problems, and has an object of providing a utilization-time changing support device that appropriately supports change in a utilization time of a household electrical appliance, and a method of supporting change in the utilization time of the household electrical appliance.